Date: 1749

"Yet should thy Soul indulge the gen'rous Heat, / Till captive Science yields her last Retreat / Should Reason guide thee with her brightest Ray, / And pour on misty Doubt resistless Day; / Should no false Kindness lure to loose Delight, / Nor Praise relax, nor Difficulty fright; / Should temptin...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: November 1752, 1791

"When up the imperceptible ascent / Of growing years, led by thy hand, I rose, / Perception's gradual light, that ever dawns / Insensibly to day, thou didst vouchsafe, / And teach me by that reason thou inspir'dst."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: March 1756

"The thought-kindling light, / Thy prime production, darts upon my mind / Its vivifying beams, my heart illumines, / And fills my soul with gratitude and Thee."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1758

"While in your hearts the flames of love may burn, / To dress the vault, like lamps in sacred urn."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Date: 1760

"Dim burns the Lamp of Life; this Breast heaves slow; / My Soul shall soon the last sad Journey go."

— Langhorne,William (1721-1772)

Date: w. May, 1756; 1761

"For these, if I forget my patron's praise, / While bright ideas dance upon my mind, / Ne'er may these eyes behold auspicious days, / May friends prove faithless, and the Muse unkind."

— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)

Date: 1762-3

"Conjecture thus, That mental ignis fatuus, Led his poor brains a weary dance From France to England, hence to France."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763

"Doth Virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, / Or from a Spring more pure doth Action flow? / Is not thy Soul bound with those very chains / Which shackle us, or is that SELF, which reigns / O'er Kings and Beggars, which in all we see / Most strong and sov'reign, only weak in Thee?"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1767, 1784

"But if foul Passion, or distemper'd Pride, / Impede its search, or Phrenzy seize the brain, / Then Ignorance a gloomy darkness spreads, / Or Superstition, with mishapen forms, / Erects its savage empire in the mind."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1755, 1771

"In every human breast there lives enshrined / Some atom pregnant with the' etherial mind; / Some plastic power, some intellectual ray, / Some genial sunbeam from the source of day; / Something that, warm and restless to aspire, / Works the young heart, and sets the soul on fire, / And bids us al...

— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)